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Hackers target baseball teams in Facebook attack

Prank sees phony news messages posted to site

An apparent account breach on Facebook resulted in a number of profiles belonging to Major League Baseball (MLB) clubs being compromised.

The attack, which first surfaced on Thursday, led to a series of phony news alerts and postings on the pages of teams such as the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and Chicago White Sox. The postings, which are humorous in nature, appear to be part of an elaborate prank.

On the New York Yankees page, the attackers posted a news item claiming that star player Derek Jeter would miss the rest of the season due to a sex change operation and would be returning to the team as "Minnie Mantlez."

Other posts include a reference on the San Francisco Giants page to controversial remarks made by the head of the Chick-Fil-A fast food chain and a post to the Chicago White Sox page directed towards President Obama, a well-known fan of the club.

Other clubs who were compromised in the attack include the Miami Marlins, Washington Nationals, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox.

The incident appears to be the result of a compromised account at MLB Advanced Media, the group responsible for overseeing the official Facebook accounts of Major League clubs.

While the attack appears to be a relatively harmless prank, security experts warn that the incident could have led to a far more serious attack.

"I guess everyone should be grateful that the hacker didn't exploit their access to the baseball clubs' Facebook pages by posting something more malicious, such as links to malware-infected pages, that could have impacted thousands of sports fans," Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said in a blog post.

Facebook has suffered a number of high-profile breaches in recent years. In 2011, company founder Mark Zuckerberg had his personal account compromised when an attacker managed to exploit a vulnerability in the social networking platform, while other celebrities and politicians have seen their accounts hacked.